Succedent and Cadent Houses Explained

A constructed chart with ten bodies has one angular, four succedent and five cadent placements, so it leans toward learning, adjusting and background work, with the Sun in the tenth as its single strong public note.

The twelve houses fall into three groups of four, and the groups repeat as you move around the wheel: angular, succedent, cadent, then angular again. Houses 1, 4, 7 and 10 are angular. The ones after them, 2, 5, 8 and 11, are succedent. The ones after those, 3, 6, 9 and 12, are cadent. Each trio therefore reads in the same order: a house that starts something at an angle, a house that builds on it, and a house that adapts before the next angle arrives.

Succedent comes from a Latin word for following, and cadent from one for falling. The angular group has its own treatment elsewhere; the focus here is on the other eight.

Each succedent house follows an angular house, which gives the name. A common summary is that angular houses start, and succedent houses consolidate. The second house holds resources and values, the fifth holds creativity, pleasure and play, the eighth holds shared resources and deep commitments, and the eleventh holds friends, groups and hopes.

By their place on the natural wheel they match the fixed signs, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, which is a good clue to their character: staying power, loyalty, and things that continue once started.

Cadent means falling away. Each cadent house sits just before an angle, furthest from the corner it follows. The third covers everyday learning, communication and short trips. The sixth covers routine, daily work and service. The ninth covers higher learning, belief and long journeys. The twelfth covers solitude, rest and what is hidden or unfinished.

They match the mutable signs, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, which are the signs of adjusting, sorting and changing. In practice the cadent houses are where people adapt, practice and prepare.

Older writers called cadent houses the weakest, because a planet there is far from the angles and less visible. Modern readers more often say these houses are about inner and background work, which is quieter rather than lesser.

Take a constructed chart with the ten bodies placed like this: Sun in the 10th, Moon in the 2nd, Mercury in the 9th, Venus in the 11th, Mars in the 3rd, Jupiter in the 6th, Saturn in the 12th, Uranus in the 2nd, Neptune in the 3rd and Pluto in the 5th.

Count by group. Angular: one (the Sun). Succedent: four (Moon, Venus, Uranus and Pluto). Cadent: five (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune). Ten bodies split evenly across three groups of four houses would put about three or four in each, so this chart leans toward the cadent group and has few angular planets.

A reader might say the weight of the chart is in learning, adjusting and background work, with less starting of things in the open, and that the Sun in the tenth is the single strong public note. That describes a style of working, not a limit.

Some traditional writers also sort houses by whether they have a whole-sign aspect to the first house. The second, sixth, eighth and twelfth do not form a major aspect to it by sign, and were called houses of aversion. That older scheme cuts across the three groups: the second and eighth are succedent, the sixth and twelfth are cadent.

It shows that these labels are tools, and different traditions sort the same wheel in different ways. When you read about a house being strong or weak, check which scheme the author means, because a house can be well placed in one and poorly placed in the other.

1. Count the ten bodies by group and write down the three totals.
2. Compare them with an even spread, which is about three or four per group.
3. Read each planet’s house topic first. The group is a background note, not the main message.
4. If a group is nearly empty, ask what that kind of activity looks like in your life, rather than what is missing.
5. Look at the same planet in both a succedent and a cadent house, such as the Moon in the second against the Moon in the third, and note how the topic changes the reading even though the planet does not.

Hellenistic astrologers, writing in the centuries around the start of the common era, also gave each of seven planets a house where it was said to rejoice, or have its joy. The table below shows why the older view of cadent houses as weak was never the whole story.

Four of the seven joys fall in cadent houses and two in succedent ones, and only Mercury’s is angular. In that scheme a cadent house is where certain planets are at ease, which fits the modern view of those houses as quieter, not lesser. Joys are a traditional idea that many modern astrologers use little.

Why is the fifth house, the house of play, called one that consolidates? It follows the fourth house of home. The tradition’s logic is that enjoyment grows from a secure base, and consolidating here means making something your own, not making it dull.

Do the groups still work in whole-sign houses? Yes. Count signs from the Rising sign: the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh signs are succedent, and the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth are cadent. Only the question of where an angle falls inside a house changes between systems.

The house groups describe a style of working, not a limit, and a cadent planet is not weak in every part of life.